Welfare

(and Destiny, Crystal, Bambi…) That’s the headline on this New York Post expose of the food stamp/TANF program in New York. Federal welfare spending has exploded under the Obama administration, now accounting for nearly as much as defense spending. The food stamp and TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, i.e., cash) programs are among the largest. EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards are issued to participants in these federal programs; EBT »

As Republican and Democratic negotiators look for places to cut the federal budget, welfare spending should be at the top of the list. The Senate Budget Committee reports that total spending on means-tested federal programs, if divided by the number of households living below the official poverty line, works out to $168 per day. How much is that? Well, the average American household lives on $137 per day: That welfare »

In the wake of President Obama’s re-election victory, there has been a lot of discussion about makers and takers. Mitt Romney said on a conference call with supporters, among many other things, that Obama bought a lot of votes with “gifts” to various constituencies, an evidently true observation for which he mysteriously was maligned by Bobby Jindal and others. The truth is much worse than Romney suggested or than most »

Federal law prohibits the admission of aliens to this country who are “likely at any time to become a public charge.” This is one of many statutes that the scofflaw Obama administration brazenly flouts. Rather than ensuring that immigrants will not become liabilities to the public purse, the Obama administration explicitly lures them to the U.S. with promises of lavish welfare benefits–a policy that is both illegal and perverse. This »

Welfare is now the largest item in the federal budget, and under Barack Obama’s budget–the one that didn’t get any votes, but may nevertheless be a blueprint for the next four years–it is slated to grow another 30% in Obama’s second term. Welfare is now the largest category of federal spending; note that the figures in the chart include state contributions to federal welfare programs: This is an astonishing fact: »

America is in decline; fewer people are working; more are in poverty; economic growth is stagnant at best; more Americans than ever believe that our best days are behind us. But one thing in America is booming: welfare. Especially federal welfare. Historically, the federal government has had little role to play with regard to welfare programs, which have been seen as a state and local responsibility. That changed with the »

You can tell that the pro-Romney ads criticizing President Obama’s liberal new approach to “workfare” are scoring points. For one thing, they continue to run, even though the MSM has proclaimed them false or misleading. For another, Team Obama, through surrogate Gov. Martin O’Malley, is claiming that this line of attack is “racially coded.” That has long been the standard response when a Republican punch lands. Steven Law, president of »

E.J. Dionne delivers two pieces of hack sophistry for the price of one in his latest column. One of them is foolish; the other dishonest. The foolish attack is his claim that if you “hate” Obamacare, you “must” return any rebate check you receive from an insurance company as a result of that Act. This, Dionne claims, is “just common sense.” If you believe in free enterprise, then the government »

The White House is pushing back against Mitt Romney’s claim that President Obama is dismantling federal welfare reform. The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it will consider requests by states for waivers regarding work requirements for welfare recipients. Romney says that this will enable the federal government to take the “work’ out of the popular “workfare” system put in place by President Clinton and a Republican »

If you have high blood pressure, take some medication before reading further. A basic premise of immigration law is that immigrants to the U.S. are expected to be self-supporting. We obviously don’t want to attract people who have no intention of working, but simply want to benefit from our generous welfare system. This principle is incorporated into the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides: An alien who, in the opinion »

The Clinton administration’s most notable achievement was welfare reform. Well, Clinton vetoed it twice before he finally signed it into law, but once everyone recognized that welfare reform was a resounding success he embraced it enthusiastically. Welfare reform succeeded in drastically reducing the welfare rolls, thereby cutting back on the culture of dependency. But Barack Obama loves dependency, so on July 12 he gutted welfare reform by eliminating work requirements »